Even though I am a subscriber for 7 bucks a month I am seemingly unable to access the full lenght version of this podcast episode/Youtube video even though I am logged in here. Any ideas?
At the beginning of the podcast, Sam notes that he mostly agrees with you, Glenn, about Affirmative Action and the position of Blacks in US society.
You come back with the idea that he should "think for himself".
Sam is being more realistic - nobody can become an expert on everything. Everybody ends up choosing WHO to believe, more than deciding for themselves WHAT to believe. Listeners & readers who don't write comments even more so - and those who have too much life to spend much time on the internet at all even more so.
Tribal beliefs are important for normal folk to reduce their own cognitive load. We sort of get to choose our intellectual leaders, mostly, but once chosen it's mostly accepting what those leaders say and see how it solves your own problems.
A few of us, and only a few, are able to rationally criticize the leaders in our own tribe. You are one of the few, and like Sam, I start with the assumption that you're right.
Except ... a week or two ago when John said "Trump is an idiot", and you replied "Trump is an idiot." Do you really believe that Trump is a bigger idiot than Biden? What was Trump's bad policy?
Worse than Biden's reducing US oil production (sending prices higher, and more cash to Russia)? Worse than running away from Afghanistan, with essentially no plan after trashing the plan Trump's guys were drawing up?
Worse than inflation causing $1.3 trillion extra stimulus cash?
Worse than Biden telling Putin it would be OK for Russia to have a small incursion into Ukraine?
Really, John still criticizes Trump, like his famous NY Times employer seems to require - but you don't have to fully accept evidence free insults, nor agree with them if you don't. If you do, you should give an example, like:
Obama is a liar - "you can keep your doctor".
Or Bush 41 "Read my Lips".
But in general, normal folk look for believable, mostly honest folk, that they can believe in. Then they do believe in those folks.
Hi Glenn, off subject but may I suggest you and/or Sam Harris invite Stephen Meyer regarding his book "The Return of the God Hypothesis". He is very enlightening regarding the divide between science and God.
You are so right to defend Murray, or anybody's, right to ask the question. How much is genetics? How much is nurture/ culture/ living conditions/ everything else.
50:50? 40: 60? 80:20? Anti-science haters of Murray who insisted on 0% genetics are increasingly being proved wrong.
But we can't do anything about genetics, yet we can maybe affect and improve each child's situation. Maybe. Because spending gov't and charity money on poor people seems to have been tried, and failed to work on many.
One idea that's terrible, tho Murray might endorse it somewhat, is Universal Basic Income (UBI). Paying to be lazy is terrible - see Mississippi and response to the Covid stimulus. Instead we need a Job Guaranty of State, National, or Country service, to hire everybody, which hasn't seriously been tried. It's based on the theory that most poor folk need to earn self-respect, which can't be given, but must be earned.
There might be other programs to reward other good behavior, like getting married, or being single without kids or pregnancy.
I wish there were some policy ideas you were thinking should be tried - we should all be humble enough to admit none know what "will work". But some policies will work better than others.
To Sam's argument that we should consciously blind ourselves to group differences (if they exist) in mental facilities: While well intentioned, that is a foolish and futile position. Does Sam believe that the Chinese are not going to investigate the genetic determinates of intelligence, unconstrained by his racial sensitivities? That seems about as likely to me as the snowball's chance of escaping hell. And are science and policy going to be in a better place if the Chinese are the thought leaders who have mastered the science? I think not. Willful ignorance is not going to be helpful. Let's try to understand reality, not hide from it. That ain't going to work.
Just sticking head in here from seeing Rob Montz's “Harvard Canceled Its Best Black Professor. Why?” This is about Roland Fryer, who I'd always heard good things about, and the ruthless end to his career.
Can't rate You high enough, Professor Loury! If You happen across this, bow and kiss Your feet!
Anybody belonging to Common Sense should check it out. Actually, it's be worth one month's subscription to watch the 25 min. documentary.
I think I can get to where Sam is aiming. No one collects data on how many blondes get into Harvard, or Bronx Science, etc. I'd like race, creed and gender differences to be just as irrelevant. But right now there is an entire government, academic, and business "industrial complex" that collects, interprets, and takes remedial action based on this data. I'm sure they are not prepared to give up their livelihoods. Entire business models are based on manipulation of this data. Would that it were not so, but Sam will have to wait a bit for his wish.
Let me first say that I admire Sam Harris and subscribe to his podcast. I share his desire to live in a world in which skin color is as incidental as hair color. However, I was surprised by his question about why we should investigate group level academic performance. Glenn’s answer to this was perfect. As long as the wokes allege racism to be the cause of disparities, then we will need to gather facts and data to prove that racism is not the cause of the disparities. Murray’s “Facing Reality” was the inevitable response to false accusations about racism’s role in our society, regardless of how sad it was to read that book. Harris is way too smart and thoughtful to not know this.
Glenn, I believe you got the better of Sam on this question. Your vigorous defense of intellectual curiosity and the need for it in academia and elsewhere was as articulate and cogent as any I’ve ever read. And I believe Harris’s rather weak response that perhaps there are some subjects so fraught or disquieting that we should simply ignore them and compel others to do so too is intellectually dishonest or at least very weak. Keep up the good work!
Respect both these men greatly. Sam especially because he dared to interview Charles Murray. I’ve listened to Glenn a lot more, and especially enjoyed his talks with John McWhorter. I have to say, while Sam’s argument about race should be regarded like hair color would be neat, it isn’t and part of why it isn’t is that there are all kinds of movements and agendas going on to bring about “equity” for non-whites, so we cannot just not pay attention. We need to figure out how to bring about the non-interest Sam wishes for. I can’t say I know a lot about why or how IQ develops as it does, but I have to think that Asians studying 365 days a year bodes well for them, while whites studying only 2/3rd of that time may not end up as intelligent, and that is only ONE factor out of many many factors. How much do whites dumb themselves down with drugs or alcohol for example? How would an IQ test done on men using only feminine questions turn out? Ditto, women tested on predominantly male subjects? True, it is not how we use IQ testing, but I think I’m making a useful point here. I don’t think we are all truly blank slates to start with and how we live has impact on our ultimate intelligence.
Sorry if too long. TYTY both-a YOUSE. Hope to listen to podcast today, mebbe.
SH: He I perceived in hindsight to be a kind of canary in the coal mine.
Sh: But I viewed it as morally important to do,
GL: That's a question of cause and effect, and so on. And what manner of society will we have become if not only asking the question is forbidden but defending the asking of the question is forbidden?
GL: *** You know-nothing, anti-intellectual thugs. I mean, the people who want to shut up a discussion about this question and who want to make it a sign of your decency and your legitimacy for membership in society to castigate and ostracize Charles Murray, which I am not going to do, those people are a threat to civilization, in my opinion. ***
SH: So we just simply don’t have the data on how many blondes got into Harvard last year. And nor would anyone think to have that data. We don’t want the data, nobody cares. How do we get there with respect to skin color and religion and anything else? That’s where I think I would want to be. The path open to us there is to cease to pay attention to these variables.
"Coming Apart" was also mentioned on M. DeBoer's Substack. But MAY attempt them in chronological order, IF at all. Hoping to.
As I posted before, genetics and effect on intelligence most definitely SHOULD be investigated. I don't think CRISPR should have been investigated without some group reviewing what the long-range effects of Super-Intelligence MIGHT be. Made up of, mostly, non-PhDs, IMHO. Given, human beings don't even have the mental capacity to fully understand what Super-Intelligence would actually turn out to BE.
My former mentor was BIG fan of Transhumanism but feared Super-Intelligence. THis is logically untenable. You can SAY Transhumanism is all about extending human longevity. Weeeel then.. It has the nasty SIDE-EFFECT of being path to Super-Intelligence. I've only seen the question raised once, by a non-scientists, and never seen it answered ANYWHERE. What WILL happen when some-a the population gains Super-Intelligence and the rest-a us slaves don't? Or the slaves get a lower-order form of AI or super-genes or whatever it turns out to be?
What Musk is doing at Neuralink? Should NOT be investigated until the issue of Super-Intelligence is at least LOOKED at. It progresses same as CRISPR. "It's for MEDICAL PURPOSES! SAVE people!!" Yeah, but right there on the website they answer the question if technique will be used for non-medical purposes. Just as You would KNOW it would happen. Answer: Yup, we envision it probably would be.
On the other side-a the balance scale, former-mentor says what Russia and China are CURRENTLY doing in the way of Transhumanism is horrific. Dunno. He never said and I didn't press. Should-a. But can imagine it'd be the worst. Well, actually can't imagine anything at ALL about it.
Me? Let NATO consortium do that work on AI and Transhumanism. Radical? Super-Intelligence radical DEPARTURE. Basically creating a new species of Homo s. if looked at in a certain Way. Let other countries police any country that's wants to rule the world with Super-Intelligence and Transhumanism in general.
I think if we did not know what we don’t know, then you could argue that ignorance is bliss, but when we DO know what we don’t know, I would say it’s better to try to find the answers. If there are no questions asked because we don’t know that we don’t know, it’s fine. The trouble is that when we there are questions but no answers, people try to answer with lies.
This is all to say I believe knowledge is power and the truth will always prevail, eventually. The questions are better answered than unanswered, and even if the lies are believed now, future generations will look back and see the truth, but only if we answer those questions. The problem with certain people now is that facts are irrelevant to them but again, if we don’t seek answers to questions we will allow those people to write the answers with their lies. So I would say that there is nothing that is better not known
I am with Sam Harris when he wonders just why Charles Murray wrote his latest book. Murray himself took pains during the interview with Glenn Loury to say that the disparities he found between the races were most evident in the middle, and not so much on the extreme ends. Okay, so what does that really mean? But he is not going to comment on what it all means, he is just giving us the data. Come on. Conservative writer Wilfred Reilly has written about the i.q. scores of ethnic groups around the world, which highlights that many European populations have i.q. scores very close to African Americans, and also how average i.q. scores for African Americans and other groups have changed/increased pretty dramatically over the years, which points strongly towards environmental rather than genetic factors being most important. Reilly's points need to be explored in any discussion about ethnicity and i.q. Why not ask Murray about that? I read Murray's book Coming Apart, and thought he had a lot of good info and insights, but he also struck me as having an agenda, and being rather obsessed with the purchasing habits of upper middle class professionals, blaming them for every ill besetting less educated, less wealthy white Americans, whose economic plight he otherwise described very eloquently through his statistics and research. Murray deserves to be treated respectfully, he has a right to speak his mind, and present his research, but I don't think he deserves special treatment either. His research should be open to critique, like any other scholar.
Charles Murray isn’t deplatformed. He has been pushed off the stage a few times. Regardless of that, his voice is widely available, his writings are on lots of bookshelves, including libraries. It is unfortunate that there are people out there who would try to use forms of force or coercion to prevent Murray from being on a stage that voluntarily requests him, and I find those people contemptible. But, alas Glenn, I find Murray contemptible as well. The fact that he has written some books that has had some political influence doesn’t make him less contemptible in my mind. Not having read the Bell Curve and some of Human Achievement would not have impoverished my mind. Not having read his other books likely hasn’t impoverished my mind either.
I commend you, Sam Harris, and Coleman Hughes for engaging with him. I think even contemptible people, if they have some popular appeal, should be wrestled with in debate and discussion rather than censored by good and reasonable people. But I am bewildered that you and John view him with such reverence and affection.
From every interview I have watched with him, he has demonstrated a faith in the notion that black people as a group are “dumb” (his word in the Bell Curve for people on the low end), and the reason for them being dumb is genetic. Murray confidently believes that the iq disparities among racial groups are due to genetic variations in racial groups, yet such confidence can only be had with the faith of a bigot.
It is*possible* such correlations and disparities are genetically grounded, but it’s also possible that they can be explained by culture. The confidence he expresses in interviews about the genetic causation is not rationally justified. And I would argue that the cultural explanation has better evidence. Despite 200+ years of brutal oppression and destruction of black Americans and their capacity to develop as individuals and communities, the theory he has faith in is that the limitations black people now face are genetically bounded. Anyone who thinks that 60 years of the Party of Slavery parasitically feeding off black victimhood, resentment, and insecurity by sabotaging their efforts to succeed with faux reparations, counter productive affirmative action, and political patronage counts as any semblance of an experiment to offset 200 years of brutality that just might affect disparities in cognitive abilities probably has deep seated bigotries about black people, aka racism, at least when no one is looking.
The cause of such disparities is extremely important when it comes to how we approach those disparities from a societal perspective. If we have the faith of racial bigots such as Murray that those disparities are genetic, putting in resources to change the cultural practices of black people as a group would a futile enterprise. Which is why Murray’s attitude appears to be that society must come to just accept the disparities: they won’t change. On the other hand, if you have the much more reasonable faith that disparities are due to culture, putting in resources the right way could have dramatic impact on those disparities.
The right way, btw, is not how the Democratic Party and BLM loyalists are currently proposing cultural change: e.g. declaring that the pursuit intellectual achievement is “whiteness” and lowering standards for black people.
And speaking of platforms, I’d really like a platform. Rather than defending bigots like Murray and expanding his platform, how about using your platform to help others, such as my glorious and humble self, to get theirs. It saddens me that my essay is still lingering in darkness while illustrious people such as yourself sweat about Charles Murray not being able to spread his idea that black people as a group are doomed to have a lower iq forever because of their genetics.
My essay, just in case you actually read this comment:
It's hard to precisely explain the elation one feels at seeing a prominent black leader like Glenn Loury giving a great but maligned American like Charles Murray his due. Thank you Glenn--you are sorely needed!
When we allow others to decide what information is allowed to be propagated, we don't learn the lessons of Nanjing or My Lai. We don't discover root causes and develop effective perspectives or solutions. It is a voluntary mental handicap to accept limitations on what can be known.
Even though I am a subscriber for 7 bucks a month I am seemingly unable to access the full lenght version of this podcast episode/Youtube video even though I am logged in here. Any ideas?
At the beginning of the podcast, Sam notes that he mostly agrees with you, Glenn, about Affirmative Action and the position of Blacks in US society.
You come back with the idea that he should "think for himself".
Sam is being more realistic - nobody can become an expert on everything. Everybody ends up choosing WHO to believe, more than deciding for themselves WHAT to believe. Listeners & readers who don't write comments even more so - and those who have too much life to spend much time on the internet at all even more so.
Tribal beliefs are important for normal folk to reduce their own cognitive load. We sort of get to choose our intellectual leaders, mostly, but once chosen it's mostly accepting what those leaders say and see how it solves your own problems.
A few of us, and only a few, are able to rationally criticize the leaders in our own tribe. You are one of the few, and like Sam, I start with the assumption that you're right.
Except ... a week or two ago when John said "Trump is an idiot", and you replied "Trump is an idiot." Do you really believe that Trump is a bigger idiot than Biden? What was Trump's bad policy?
Worse than Biden's reducing US oil production (sending prices higher, and more cash to Russia)? Worse than running away from Afghanistan, with essentially no plan after trashing the plan Trump's guys were drawing up?
Worse than inflation causing $1.3 trillion extra stimulus cash?
Worse than Biden telling Putin it would be OK for Russia to have a small incursion into Ukraine?
Really, John still criticizes Trump, like his famous NY Times employer seems to require - but you don't have to fully accept evidence free insults, nor agree with them if you don't. If you do, you should give an example, like:
Obama is a liar - "you can keep your doctor".
Or Bush 41 "Read my Lips".
But in general, normal folk look for believable, mostly honest folk, that they can believe in. Then they do believe in those folks.
Hi Glenn, off subject but may I suggest you and/or Sam Harris invite Stephen Meyer regarding his book "The Return of the God Hypothesis". He is very enlightening regarding the divide between science and God.
You are so right to defend Murray, or anybody's, right to ask the question. How much is genetics? How much is nurture/ culture/ living conditions/ everything else.
50:50? 40: 60? 80:20? Anti-science haters of Murray who insisted on 0% genetics are increasingly being proved wrong.
But we can't do anything about genetics, yet we can maybe affect and improve each child's situation. Maybe. Because spending gov't and charity money on poor people seems to have been tried, and failed to work on many.
One idea that's terrible, tho Murray might endorse it somewhat, is Universal Basic Income (UBI). Paying to be lazy is terrible - see Mississippi and response to the Covid stimulus. Instead we need a Job Guaranty of State, National, or Country service, to hire everybody, which hasn't seriously been tried. It's based on the theory that most poor folk need to earn self-respect, which can't be given, but must be earned.
There might be other programs to reward other good behavior, like getting married, or being single without kids or pregnancy.
I wish there were some policy ideas you were thinking should be tried - we should all be humble enough to admit none know what "will work". But some policies will work better than others.
To Sam's argument that we should consciously blind ourselves to group differences (if they exist) in mental facilities: While well intentioned, that is a foolish and futile position. Does Sam believe that the Chinese are not going to investigate the genetic determinates of intelligence, unconstrained by his racial sensitivities? That seems about as likely to me as the snowball's chance of escaping hell. And are science and policy going to be in a better place if the Chinese are the thought leaders who have mastered the science? I think not. Willful ignorance is not going to be helpful. Let's try to understand reality, not hide from it. That ain't going to work.
Still haven't had time to watch video. My loss.
Just sticking head in here from seeing Rob Montz's “Harvard Canceled Its Best Black Professor. Why?” This is about Roland Fryer, who I'd always heard good things about, and the ruthless end to his career.
Can't rate You high enough, Professor Loury! If You happen across this, bow and kiss Your feet!
Anybody belonging to Common Sense should check it out. Actually, it's be worth one month's subscription to watch the 25 min. documentary.
I think I can get to where Sam is aiming. No one collects data on how many blondes get into Harvard, or Bronx Science, etc. I'd like race, creed and gender differences to be just as irrelevant. But right now there is an entire government, academic, and business "industrial complex" that collects, interprets, and takes remedial action based on this data. I'm sure they are not prepared to give up their livelihoods. Entire business models are based on manipulation of this data. Would that it were not so, but Sam will have to wait a bit for his wish.
Let me first say that I admire Sam Harris and subscribe to his podcast. I share his desire to live in a world in which skin color is as incidental as hair color. However, I was surprised by his question about why we should investigate group level academic performance. Glenn’s answer to this was perfect. As long as the wokes allege racism to be the cause of disparities, then we will need to gather facts and data to prove that racism is not the cause of the disparities. Murray’s “Facing Reality” was the inevitable response to false accusations about racism’s role in our society, regardless of how sad it was to read that book. Harris is way too smart and thoughtful to not know this.
Glenn, I believe you got the better of Sam on this question. Your vigorous defense of intellectual curiosity and the need for it in academia and elsewhere was as articulate and cogent as any I’ve ever read. And I believe Harris’s rather weak response that perhaps there are some subjects so fraught or disquieting that we should simply ignore them and compel others to do so too is intellectually dishonest or at least very weak. Keep up the good work!
Respect both these men greatly. Sam especially because he dared to interview Charles Murray. I’ve listened to Glenn a lot more, and especially enjoyed his talks with John McWhorter. I have to say, while Sam’s argument about race should be regarded like hair color would be neat, it isn’t and part of why it isn’t is that there are all kinds of movements and agendas going on to bring about “equity” for non-whites, so we cannot just not pay attention. We need to figure out how to bring about the non-interest Sam wishes for. I can’t say I know a lot about why or how IQ develops as it does, but I have to think that Asians studying 365 days a year bodes well for them, while whites studying only 2/3rd of that time may not end up as intelligent, and that is only ONE factor out of many many factors. How much do whites dumb themselves down with drugs or alcohol for example? How would an IQ test done on men using only feminine questions turn out? Ditto, women tested on predominantly male subjects? True, it is not how we use IQ testing, but I think I’m making a useful point here. I don’t think we are all truly blank slates to start with and how we live has impact on our ultimate intelligence.
Sorry if too long. TYTY both-a YOUSE. Hope to listen to podcast today, mebbe.
SH: He I perceived in hindsight to be a kind of canary in the coal mine.
Sh: But I viewed it as morally important to do,
GL: That's a question of cause and effect, and so on. And what manner of society will we have become if not only asking the question is forbidden but defending the asking of the question is forbidden?
GL: *** You know-nothing, anti-intellectual thugs. I mean, the people who want to shut up a discussion about this question and who want to make it a sign of your decency and your legitimacy for membership in society to castigate and ostracize Charles Murray, which I am not going to do, those people are a threat to civilization, in my opinion. ***
SH: So we just simply don’t have the data on how many blondes got into Harvard last year. And nor would anyone think to have that data. We don’t want the data, nobody cares. How do we get there with respect to skin color and religion and anything else? That’s where I think I would want to be. The path open to us there is to cease to pay attention to these variables.
"Coming Apart" was also mentioned on M. DeBoer's Substack. But MAY attempt them in chronological order, IF at all. Hoping to.
As I posted before, genetics and effect on intelligence most definitely SHOULD be investigated. I don't think CRISPR should have been investigated without some group reviewing what the long-range effects of Super-Intelligence MIGHT be. Made up of, mostly, non-PhDs, IMHO. Given, human beings don't even have the mental capacity to fully understand what Super-Intelligence would actually turn out to BE.
My former mentor was BIG fan of Transhumanism but feared Super-Intelligence. THis is logically untenable. You can SAY Transhumanism is all about extending human longevity. Weeeel then.. It has the nasty SIDE-EFFECT of being path to Super-Intelligence. I've only seen the question raised once, by a non-scientists, and never seen it answered ANYWHERE. What WILL happen when some-a the population gains Super-Intelligence and the rest-a us slaves don't? Or the slaves get a lower-order form of AI or super-genes or whatever it turns out to be?
What Musk is doing at Neuralink? Should NOT be investigated until the issue of Super-Intelligence is at least LOOKED at. It progresses same as CRISPR. "It's for MEDICAL PURPOSES! SAVE people!!" Yeah, but right there on the website they answer the question if technique will be used for non-medical purposes. Just as You would KNOW it would happen. Answer: Yup, we envision it probably would be.
On the other side-a the balance scale, former-mentor says what Russia and China are CURRENTLY doing in the way of Transhumanism is horrific. Dunno. He never said and I didn't press. Should-a. But can imagine it'd be the worst. Well, actually can't imagine anything at ALL about it.
Me? Let NATO consortium do that work on AI and Transhumanism. Radical? Super-Intelligence radical DEPARTURE. Basically creating a new species of Homo s. if looked at in a certain Way. Let other countries police any country that's wants to rule the world with Super-Intelligence and Transhumanism in general.
That's just me.
I think if we did not know what we don’t know, then you could argue that ignorance is bliss, but when we DO know what we don’t know, I would say it’s better to try to find the answers. If there are no questions asked because we don’t know that we don’t know, it’s fine. The trouble is that when we there are questions but no answers, people try to answer with lies.
This is all to say I believe knowledge is power and the truth will always prevail, eventually. The questions are better answered than unanswered, and even if the lies are believed now, future generations will look back and see the truth, but only if we answer those questions. The problem with certain people now is that facts are irrelevant to them but again, if we don’t seek answers to questions we will allow those people to write the answers with their lies. So I would say that there is nothing that is better not known
I am with Sam Harris when he wonders just why Charles Murray wrote his latest book. Murray himself took pains during the interview with Glenn Loury to say that the disparities he found between the races were most evident in the middle, and not so much on the extreme ends. Okay, so what does that really mean? But he is not going to comment on what it all means, he is just giving us the data. Come on. Conservative writer Wilfred Reilly has written about the i.q. scores of ethnic groups around the world, which highlights that many European populations have i.q. scores very close to African Americans, and also how average i.q. scores for African Americans and other groups have changed/increased pretty dramatically over the years, which points strongly towards environmental rather than genetic factors being most important. Reilly's points need to be explored in any discussion about ethnicity and i.q. Why not ask Murray about that? I read Murray's book Coming Apart, and thought he had a lot of good info and insights, but he also struck me as having an agenda, and being rather obsessed with the purchasing habits of upper middle class professionals, blaming them for every ill besetting less educated, less wealthy white Americans, whose economic plight he otherwise described very eloquently through his statistics and research. Murray deserves to be treated respectfully, he has a right to speak his mind, and present his research, but I don't think he deserves special treatment either. His research should be open to critique, like any other scholar.
Charles Murray isn’t deplatformed. He has been pushed off the stage a few times. Regardless of that, his voice is widely available, his writings are on lots of bookshelves, including libraries. It is unfortunate that there are people out there who would try to use forms of force or coercion to prevent Murray from being on a stage that voluntarily requests him, and I find those people contemptible. But, alas Glenn, I find Murray contemptible as well. The fact that he has written some books that has had some political influence doesn’t make him less contemptible in my mind. Not having read the Bell Curve and some of Human Achievement would not have impoverished my mind. Not having read his other books likely hasn’t impoverished my mind either.
I commend you, Sam Harris, and Coleman Hughes for engaging with him. I think even contemptible people, if they have some popular appeal, should be wrestled with in debate and discussion rather than censored by good and reasonable people. But I am bewildered that you and John view him with such reverence and affection.
From every interview I have watched with him, he has demonstrated a faith in the notion that black people as a group are “dumb” (his word in the Bell Curve for people on the low end), and the reason for them being dumb is genetic. Murray confidently believes that the iq disparities among racial groups are due to genetic variations in racial groups, yet such confidence can only be had with the faith of a bigot.
It is*possible* such correlations and disparities are genetically grounded, but it’s also possible that they can be explained by culture. The confidence he expresses in interviews about the genetic causation is not rationally justified. And I would argue that the cultural explanation has better evidence. Despite 200+ years of brutal oppression and destruction of black Americans and their capacity to develop as individuals and communities, the theory he has faith in is that the limitations black people now face are genetically bounded. Anyone who thinks that 60 years of the Party of Slavery parasitically feeding off black victimhood, resentment, and insecurity by sabotaging their efforts to succeed with faux reparations, counter productive affirmative action, and political patronage counts as any semblance of an experiment to offset 200 years of brutality that just might affect disparities in cognitive abilities probably has deep seated bigotries about black people, aka racism, at least when no one is looking.
The cause of such disparities is extremely important when it comes to how we approach those disparities from a societal perspective. If we have the faith of racial bigots such as Murray that those disparities are genetic, putting in resources to change the cultural practices of black people as a group would a futile enterprise. Which is why Murray’s attitude appears to be that society must come to just accept the disparities: they won’t change. On the other hand, if you have the much more reasonable faith that disparities are due to culture, putting in resources the right way could have dramatic impact on those disparities.
The right way, btw, is not how the Democratic Party and BLM loyalists are currently proposing cultural change: e.g. declaring that the pursuit intellectual achievement is “whiteness” and lowering standards for black people.
And speaking of platforms, I’d really like a platform. Rather than defending bigots like Murray and expanding his platform, how about using your platform to help others, such as my glorious and humble self, to get theirs. It saddens me that my essay is still lingering in darkness while illustrious people such as yourself sweat about Charles Murray not being able to spread his idea that black people as a group are doomed to have a lower iq forever because of their genetics.
My essay, just in case you actually read this comment:
https://minorityreport.substack.com/p/accepting-the-obvious?s=r
It's hard to precisely explain the elation one feels at seeing a prominent black leader like Glenn Loury giving a great but maligned American like Charles Murray his due. Thank you Glenn--you are sorely needed!
When we allow others to decide what information is allowed to be propagated, we don't learn the lessons of Nanjing or My Lai. We don't discover root causes and develop effective perspectives or solutions. It is a voluntary mental handicap to accept limitations on what can be known.